Sunday, 18 July 2021

Circling back to Charles Williams

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Durham Castle (University College) is the silhouette on the right (Cathedral to the left) and my rooms were located just to the right of the...
3 comments:
Thursday, 1 July 2021

Who was the best poet of The Inklings?

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Several of the Inklings were poets; and all the Big Four - CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams and Owen Barfield - began their literary ...
3 comments:
Thursday, 24 June 2021

How was Rivendell defended?

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Rivendell was located in a hidden valley; and, while it is obvious that being hidden was a helpful defence - I find it very difficult to im...
3 comments:
Friday, 18 June 2021

The strange difference of the elves in The Lord of the Rings movies

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The subject of elves and their differences from Men is one of the deep and structural aspects of Tolkien's legendarium - although it pla...
6 comments:
Saturday, 12 June 2021

What was the effect of the War of the Ring on The Shire? - from Note on the Shire Records (from the Lord of the Rings: Prologue, concerning Hobbits)

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I have often wondered how many people read the Prologue: concerning Hobbits , which comes before Chapter 1 of The Lord of the Rings.  This g...
Saturday, 5 June 2021

Was accent did Merry and Pippin have? Who gets it right?

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I am going to compare the the best known audio-depictions of Merry and Pippin: the three movies directed by Peter Jackson (on the assumption...
6 comments:
Friday, 14 May 2021

Unfinished Tales by JRR Tolkien: Review of the Audiobook read by Samuel West and Timothy West (2021)

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Unfinished Tales is probably my very favourite among the many wonderful books collecting his unpublished father's works that Christophe...
3 comments:
Tuesday, 11 May 2021

What Numenor can teach us about the value of life and death

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I am fascinated by the descriptions of Tolkien's Numenoran Men; and how one of their gifts was to know when it was that they should die....
2 comments:
Tuesday, 4 May 2021

What is the unique quality of Lord of the Rings that so powerfully affected me from age 14 and for decades since?...

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There is, there must be, more to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings  (LotR) than meets the eye - or has been explained by even the very best li...
11 comments:
Friday, 23 April 2021

Spoiler-free review of The Horse and his Boy, from The Narnia Chronicles; by C.S. Lewis

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The Horse and his Boy - which is the fifth book in the Narnia Chronicles by publication - and chronologically a 'plot loop' insert ...
1 comment:
Saturday, 27 March 2021

High fantasy as intrinsically Christian

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I have been pondering what it is that I most value in my favourite books of the 'fantasy' genre - or indeed in other media such as m...
4 comments:
Wednesday, 17 March 2021

Review of The Minnipins/ The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall (1959)

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I found this book after seeing it recommended by Lin Carter as being a good post-Tolkien, Hobbit-like children's' story. In fact; I ...
2 comments:
Tuesday, 9 March 2021

Hobbit music? From the Jaye Consort

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This album was the first recording of Medieval Music I ever heard (borrowed from my history teacher and mentor John Reeve). This pioneering ...
2 comments:

Review of Elidor by Alan Garner (1965)

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The cover of my teenage copy of Elidor I have always been disappointed by Alan Garner's Elidor (1965); coming as it does between two of ...
11 comments:
Thursday, 18 February 2021

My attempted completion of Frodo's poem: O! Wanderers in the shadowed land

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Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin are in the Old Forest... * Frodo tried to sing a song to encourage them, but his voice sank to a murmur.  O! Wa...
Wednesday, 17 February 2021

The grave of JRR Tolkien's Aunt Grace Bindley Mountain (nee Tolkien) - giving the day of her death

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  The inscription reads:  IN  LOVING MEMORY  OF WILLIAM CHARLES MOUNTAIN, J.P. WHO DIED 26TH JANUARY 1928 "LIFE'S RACE WELL RUN: LI...
Sunday, 14 February 2021

Review of Tolkien's Modern Reading, by Holly Ordway (2021)

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Holly Ordway. Tolkien's modern reading: Middle-earth beyond the Middle Ages. Word on Fire: Park Ridge, Illinois, USA. pp ix, 382.   (39...
7 comments:
Thursday, 21 January 2021

Dwarves are biologically not viable (Tolkien nods again...)

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"D is" (Fili and Kili's mother) as imagined by Ancalinar - but I suspect she was (even-) less feminine than this, since Tolkie...
Tuesday, 5 January 2021

Palantir problems... Tolkien on the evil of despair

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That greatest of Tolkien scholars, Tom Shippey, noticed something profound yet hidden in the Lord of the Rings - which provides narrative ...
2 comments:
Sunday, 3 January 2021

Saruman's character in Scouring of the Shire as exemplifying Sorathic evil

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I have recently written about Sorathic evil - the purest, most negative and destructive form of evil; as being the direction in which the ...
3 comments:
Saturday, 2 January 2021

The third-comers of the Children of Illuvatar. What is the role of Hobbits in the destiny of Middle Earth? (A theory by Billy and Bruce Charlton)

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( The following is another insight I have recently developed in conversation with my son Billy - indeed Billy should get most of the credit ...
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